Sword & Shield **Official news only** DLC Crown Tundra 22nd October

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Here's some calcs to elaborate Stellar's claim:

0 SpA Dialga Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 288-342 (84.4 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO: In this calc, TTar and Duraludon are assumed to have perfect IVs. This would require a minimum 151(!!!) Special Attack for a chance to OHKO with no EVs.

0 SpA Dialga Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 264-312 (85.1 - 100.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO: This is the "worst-case scenario" with TTar having 0 HP or Special Defense IVs while Duraludon still has perfect IVs. In order for a shot to OHKO under these conditions, Duraludon would require a minimum of 116 SpA.
 

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In an earlier post in this thread, I explained that GF most likely used 15 HP IVs and 0 HP EVs in Lycanroc-Dusk's trailer. Unsurprisingly (because they have no consistency in the characteristics of the Pokemon that they show...cmon), this is not the case with Duraludon. A Level 62 Pokemon with 15 IVs and 0 EVs in HP has 171 HP if it has base 73 HP, and 173 HP if it has base 74 HP. Thus, they did not use 15 IVs and 0 EVs.

If it has 0 IVs and EVs in HP: Then Duraludon has exactly base 81 HP.

If it has 31 IVs and 0 EVs in HP: This is impossible. Such a base 65 HP Pokemon would have 171 HP, while a base 66 HP Pokemon would have 173 HP.

If it has 20 IVs and 0 EVs in HP: Then Duraludon has exactly base 71 HP. I vaguely recall that GF might have used 20 IVs before, but then again (per the beginning of this post), that very well might be meaningless. This does help give a sense of the range, though.

Note that it cannot have more than base 81 HP, which some might find a bit disappointing. Because it's Level 62, it's possible it might have some HP EVs, but I think it's unlikely that it has so many HP EVs to make much of a difference. Therefore, its base HP is extremely likely to be between 66 and 81.

Also, do not jump too quickly to conclusions about this



because of this


The power of its signature move plus its probable high Special Attack are both great news, and this Pokemon has the potential to be quite potent if GF doesn't mess it up. Unfortunately,



This screenshot demonstrates that at most, Duraludon has base 78 HP (which would be if it had 0 HP IVs and EVs). 31 IVs and 0 EVs yields base 62 HP, and thus the new likely range of its HP stat decreases to 62-78. I am almost certain this is correct.

Now to the more uncertain part. There is a fairly common (and sensible, imo) theory that Duraludon might be this region's pseudolegendary. If so, then it should have 600 BST:



Based on the above, if we guess that Duraludon has around base 70 HP and 130-something Special Attack, then look at Metagross. Metagross has base 70 Speed and an Attack or Defense stat that might be similar to Duraludon's base Special Attack. So, if you take away those 2 stats from Metagross, you can get a sense of how much BST is "left" for Duralodon's other stats (about 400, which comes out to 100 each on average). If Duralodon's base Special Attack is closer to 150, then look at Goodra instead. Again, this is all assuming Duralodon has ~600 BST, but I don't think it's that unlikely for it to have high BST.
 
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Pikachu315111 Normally I'd agree with your opinion on Duralodon's abilities, since Heavy Metal would buff its Heavy Slam. In this case, there's one glaring problem: It only weights 88 pounds (~40 kg). Even with Heavy Metal, it's way too light to deal any serious damage so it's better off using Light Metal to take less from Low Kick and Grass Knot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since we've all established that, due to various examples that I will not rehash, Gamefreak seems to be going about this new game in a sort of lazy way that isn't appeasing the community. Why could that be?

Honestly, I think they aren't interested in making money from the games anymore. To elaborate, here's something from the wiki:

Pokémon is a media franchise owned by Nintendo, created in 1995 and debuted in 1996. It is the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, having grossed $90 billion in lifetime revenue.

In terms of software sales, Pokemon is the second best-selling game franchise, having sold over 340 million units as of March 2019,[1] behind only Mario. In addition, Pokémon Go is the most-downloaded mobile game, with over 1 billion downloads.[2] The Pokémon video game series has shifted a total of over 1.31 billion units in retail sales and official downloads.

Beyond video games, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has also sold over 25.7 billion cards,[3] making it the second best-selling trading card game, after Yu-Gi-Oh![4] The Pokémon anime series is also very successful, with the films watched by over 70 million viewers at the Japan box office, and the television series watched by more than 1 billion viewers across 124 countries.


When we look at the actual gross sales for the main series games, they made (assuming I read it correctly) about 13.7 billion dollars in the past 22 years. Pretty good, obviously.

However, that's actually a surprisingly small piece of the overall Pokemon revenue, which is 90 billion dollars. That means only about 15% of Pokemon's profit, over 22 years, is from the games. Most of it comes from merchandise. Even Pokemon GO, the most downloaded mobile game of all time, made 3.3 billion dollars. Compare this to the 3.5 billion dollars in sales from the combination of all of gen 5, 6, and 7. The collective effort of a decade by Gamefreak's devs has almost been surpassed by 2 (at the time this was recorded) years' worth of Niantic's work. For the devs, it has to be pretty disappointing, maybe enough to make them lose interest in maintaining the main series games.

...Last September Gamefreak started working on a new game, an RPG centered around defending a town from monsters, called TOWN (working title). Honestly, I think they're more interested in this new project than gen 8. If 85% of Pokemon's sales come from things not related to the main series games and they know dedicated fans will still buy a mediocre game on the Switch, then why bother making it a masterpiece when they can put their heart into something else they like more? I have to wonder how much Gamefreak, and The Pokemon Company as a whole (co-owned by Gamefreak, Nintendo, and some other entity), really care about this new game.

Thanks to coming to my TED talk.
I dunno if Town the main focus. We had it announced last year, and there was literally nothing until recently. Though I agree that the games are becoming less of a focus. Jwitz points out that the this whole RIP National Pokedex shows a huge problem in Pokemon- There's a lot of merchandise- too much to the point that delaying a game would cause a huge money loss from the other parts of the franchise- hence why Pokemon games can't have a delay. The reason games like Fire Emblem Three Houses and Animal Crossing: New Horizons can afford a delay because they don't push out nearly much merchandise, but Pokemon doesn't have that luxury. And the result is showing: Repetitive, unpolished games is a small cost for the money from the other merchandise.
 
I’d hold out for the translation of てっていこうせん. てってい is almost definitely 徹底, though it could also be start with 鉄 (iron). こうせん can be 光線 (beam), 交戦 (battle), 抗戦 (resistance), among others. Do-or-die would favor 交戦 but the animation definitely looks more like a beam.
 
Is there anything that confirms that? Like if a mon has Close Combat or something, the maxed version of that would only be around 130 BP? I thought it followed a formula for boosting a moves power similar to Z-moves.

There are moves that pokemon that would naturally be above 130 BP like Overheat, Focus Punch etc. Naturally I would think the max moves created from those would be boosted proportionately.
While no official confirmation, on the playable beta, Double Edge on Wooloo turned into a 140 BP move, while Liquidation for example turned into 130 BP one, while 60 or leas BP moves turned into 110 BP Max moves.

It seems that indeed, bar potentially higher BP (200+) strange ones, Max moves shouldnt really go further than 150 or so BP and no random 250 BP Z moves shenenigans.

Though, they still allow certain pokemon to use otherwise unusable stabs (rip Lando-T could have used Fly)
 
The power of its signature move plus its probable high Special Attack are both great news, and this Pokemon has the potential to be quite potent if GF doesn't mess it up. Unfortunately,



This screenshot demonstrates that at most, Duraludon has base 78 HP (which would be if it had 0 HP IVs and EVs). 31 IVs and 0 EVs yields base 62 HP, and thus the new likely range of its HP stat decreases to 62-78. I am almost certain this is correct.

Now to the more uncertain part. There is a fairly common (and sensible, imo) theory that Duraludon might be this region's pseudolegendary. If so, then it should have 600 BST:



Based on the above, if we guess that Duraludon has around base 70 HP and 130-something Special Attack, then look at Metagross. Metagross has base 70 Speed and an Attack or Defense stat that might be similar to Duraludon's base Special Attack. So, if you take away those 2 stats from Metagross, you can get a sense of how much BST is "left" for Duralodon's other stats (about 400, which comes out to 100 each on average). If Duralodon's base Special Attack is closer to 150, then look at Goodra instead. Again, this is all assuming Duralodon has ~600 BST, but I don't think it's that unlikely for it to have high BST.
I honestly wouldn't mind Duralodon having base 62 HP for a couple of reasons:

1) It'd be the Pseudo with the lowest base HP (which would be a first, and that's neat), but mostly:

2)Now you have around 538 points you can shove wherever to minmax its base stats and have a good, strong Pokemon that doesn't (possibly) require miracles or special gimmicks or busted tutors to be good. We are already going to experience a massive power drought with the removal of the national dex and imho after Alola and its ~10 good mons, it'd be nice to have a nice selection of Pokemon that are good and not "NU on sight".
 
I honestly wouldn't mind Duralodon having base 62 HP for a couple of reasons:

1) It'd be the Pseudo with the lowest base HP (which would be a first, and that's neat), but mostly:

2)Now you have around 538 points you can shove wherever to minmax its base stats and have a good, strong Pokemon that doesn't (possibly) require miracles or special gimmicks or busted tutors to be good. We are already going to experience a massive power drought with the removal of the national dex and imho after Alola and its ~10 good mons, it'd be nice to have a nice selection of Pokemon that are good and not "NU on sight".
Plus, there's the possibility of Duraludon gaining its own gigantic feature; at least, Kommo-o got its own Z-Move in gen 7, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Duraludon really were to get some boosts. It can, however, rely on dynamax. Given its incredible type combination, this Pkm likely won't be easily removed from the field as it gains more HP if I understood the mechanic correctly; furthermore, I expect it to have high defenses. Just look at Kommo-o. Relatively low HP. but its type combination as well as its high defenses allow it to be very sturdy, excluding the obvious weakness to fairy, of course.
If I talk about Kommo-o's bulk and Duraludon's possible bulk, then I'm refering to VGC as that is what GF cares a lot about. That's why most Pkm from recent generations have stats and/or moves centred around it. For example, Kommo-o's Clanging Scales can hit both opponent Pkm while many other new Pkm from the Alolan region know the move Wide Guard, such as Bewear, Tortunator, Crabominable, Alolan Golem.
Now, to go back to the comparison between Kommo-o's and Duraludon's bulk, I'd like to stress that few types can hit both of them effectively. Let us consider Kommo-o first. Doubles emphasizes the support of your Pkm. So, although Kommo-o easily faints to any fairy move, it can rely on its partner to deal with Fairy Pkm, which leaves us to Kommo-o's weakness to Ice, Flying, Psychic, and Dragon. Dragon moves are almost non-existent in VGC (exlucing the Uber legendary Pkm), Psychic moves are almost always used only by Tapu Lele and the occasional Metagross - but Kommo-o dies to Moon Blast anyway, so it doesn't matter. Then, we have Flying, which is a pretty rare offensive move if I recall right. As for Ice moves, Kommo-o is practically guaranteed to survive them, especially after a boost and/or Intimidate. And they're most likely used by non Ice Pkm. So long you can deal with Fairy Pkm, your opponent will have a hard time to remove Kommo-o from the field.
With that in mind, let us turn to Duraludon, now. Due to its Steel/Dragon type, it only has to fear Ground and Fighting moves. The former often comes in form of Earthquake, whose power is somewhat lessened in VGC. If Duraludon has good bulk, it should have no problem to survive it, especially after a possible Intimidate. Then, we have Fighting moves. They are almost always physical in VGC, so you can deal with it with Intimidate. Plus, moves such as Low Kick and Superpower are quite common, but given Duraludon's weigth, it really only has to fear Superpower and the occasional Sacred Sword and Close Combat.
If Duraludon has good bulk, odds are it might could be actually useful in VGC. Already, it seems to have high SpA and a very strong Steel type move, with possibly no drawback in dynamax!
 
If Duraludon has good bulk, odds are it might could be actually useful in VGC. Already, it seems to have high SpA and a very strong Steel type move, with possibly no drawback in dynamax!
While I mostly agree that Dynamaxing can patch up the fact Duraludon could have mediocre bulk and avoid the fact the move hits him for 50% of his HP, there's still the opportunity cost of Dynamaxing him instead of, say, lord and savior Corviknight with his 150 BP defog, or whatever other gimmical Gigamax there is.

Not saying that it would be a bad strategy, or unviable right away, just saying that Dynamaxing a pokemon has the same opportunity cost of using a Mega or Z-move, you can only use one so you're automatically giving up all the other (potentially more impactful) options.
 

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All things considered, I think there is a fair possibility that Alcremie somehow connects to the Swirlix line, which opens up some exciting potentials for other lines wanting a new evolution.
There's a tiny sliver of hope for this living in me too. One of the things I like the most about Pokémon is how existing evolution families change over time, letting us see old content in a fresh, new light. Cross-generation evolutions are like the apex of this, since it often means that Pokémon you used to skip without a thought suddenly can become really worthwhile catches. Gen II and Gen IV completely changed how we viewed Pokémon like Onix, Scyther, Roselia, Sneasel or Tangela. Megas in Gen VI made Jokémon like Mawile and Altaria really threatening. Gen VII had remarkably little of this, but I hope Gen 8 takes up the thread again.

Re-introducing cross-gen evolutions would also be a great way to make fans excited, since it's a feature of "known unknowns". As in, we wouldn't know which 'mons would get evolutions, but most of us know very well which 'mons we would like to see evolve. Cross-gen evolutions (or new Megas) is a great way to generate lots of buzz, as the potential is already there and ready to be discussed, but the final outcome could be kept secret until the release of the game. Currently, the hype for "known unknowns" is largely negative, extending primarily to fan speculation of which Pokémon will get the shaft and not be available.

I remain pretty skeptical about cross-generation evolutions for the time being, however, since I think they would have announced it with a little more fanfare if they had decided to bring the feature back. They would presumably know how excited fans would be for it, and it would be strange to reveal a Pokémon and only later bring attention to the fact it evolves from something else. Not that I trust The Pokémon Company to know the least bit about marketing, but even they wouldn't be dumb enough not to realize the hype potential of such news.

At the very least, I'm glad they have already confirmed that the Swirlix line is in the game. It shows that even if they introduce new Pokémon with the same design basis as existing ones, they're not going to simply replace the older ones outright as if they never existed. BW1 had a little too much of that for my taste ("Forget all about Poliwag, wouldn't you rather play with Tympole instead?"), so it's great to see them acknowledge the existence of Swirlix already. And if they turn out to be related I would be over the moon, since that implies there is hope for other forgotten Pokémon even from the later generations as well.
 

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Since we've all established that, due to various examples that I will not rehash, Gamefreak seems to be going about this new game in a sort of lazy way that isn't appeasing the community. Why could that be?

Honestly, I think they aren't interested in making money from the games anymore. To elaborate, here's something from the wiki:

Pokémon is a media franchise owned by Nintendo, created in 1995 and debuted in 1996. It is the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, having grossed $90 billion in lifetime revenue.

In terms of software sales, Pokemon is the second best-selling game franchise, having sold over 340 million units as of March 2019,[1] behind only Mario. In addition, Pokémon Go is the most-downloaded mobile game, with over 1 billion downloads.[2] The Pokémon video game series has shifted a total of over 1.31 billion units in retail sales and official downloads.

Beyond video games, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has also sold over 25.7 billion cards,[3] making it the second best-selling trading card game, after Yu-Gi-Oh![4] The Pokémon anime series is also very successful, with the films watched by over 70 million viewers at the Japan box office, and the television series watched by more than 1 billion viewers across 124 countries.


When we look at the actual gross sales for the main series games, they made (assuming I read it correctly) about 13.7 billion dollars in the past 22 years. Pretty good, obviously.

However, that's actually a surprisingly small piece of the overall Pokemon revenue, which is 90 billion dollars. That means only about 15% of Pokemon's profit, over 22 years, is from the games. Most of it comes from merchandise. Even Pokemon GO, the most downloaded mobile game of all time, made 3.3 billion dollars. Compare this to the 3.5 billion dollars in sales from the combination of all of gen 5, 6, and 7. The collective effort of a decade by Gamefreak's devs has almost been surpassed by 2 (at the time this was recorded) years' worth of Niantic's work. For the devs, it has to be pretty disappointing, maybe enough to make them lose interest in maintaining the main series games.

...Last September Gamefreak started working on a new game, an RPG centered around defending a town from monsters, called TOWN (working title). Honestly, I think they're more interested in this new project than gen 8. If 85% of Pokemon's sales come from things not related to the main series games and they know dedicated fans will still buy a mediocre game on the Switch, then why bother making it a masterpiece when they can put their heart into something else they like more? I have to wonder how much Gamefreak, and The Pokemon Company as a whole (co-owned by Gamefreak, Nintendo, and some other entity), really care about this new game.

Thanks to coming to my TED talk.
Game freak has to keep making the games because they need the money to fund their other (largely unsuccessful) projects. As far as I know they don't get any money from other stuff like the TCG or merchandise deals.
 

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Pikachu315111 Normally I'd agree with your opinion on Duralodon's abilities, since Heavy Metal would buff its Heavy Slam. In this case, there's one glaring problem: It only weights 88 pounds (~40 kg). Even with Heavy Metal, it's way too light to deal any serious damage so it's better off using Light Metal to take less from Low Kick and Grass Knot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since we've all established that, due to various examples that I will not rehash, Gamefreak seems to be going about this new game in a sort of lazy way that isn't appeasing the community. Why could that be?

Honestly, I think they aren't interested in making money from the games anymore. To elaborate, here's something from the wiki:

Pokémon is a media franchise owned by Nintendo, created in 1995 and debuted in 1996. It is the highest-grossing entertainment media franchise of all time, having grossed $90 billion in lifetime revenue.

In terms of software sales, Pokemon is the second best-selling game franchise, having sold over 340 million units as of March 2019,[1] behind only Mario. In addition, Pokémon Go is the most-downloaded mobile game, with over 1 billion downloads.[2] The Pokémon video game series has shifted a total of over 1.31 billion units in retail sales and official downloads.

Beyond video games, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has also sold over 25.7 billion cards,[3] making it the second best-selling trading card game, after Yu-Gi-Oh![4] The Pokémon anime series is also very successful, with the films watched by over 70 million viewers at the Japan box office, and the television series watched by more than 1 billion viewers across 124 countries.


When we look at the actual gross sales for the main series games, they made (assuming I read it correctly) about 13.7 billion dollars in the past 22 years. Pretty good, obviously.

However, that's actually a surprisingly small piece of the overall Pokemon revenue, which is 90 billion dollars. That means only about 15% of Pokemon's profit, over 22 years, is from the games. Most of it comes from merchandise. Even Pokemon GO, the most downloaded mobile game of all time, made 3.3 billion dollars. Compare this to the 3.5 billion dollars in sales from the combination of all of gen 5, 6, and 7. The collective effort of a decade by Gamefreak's devs has almost been surpassed by 2 (at the time this was recorded) years' worth of Niantic's work. For the devs, it has to be pretty disappointing, maybe enough to make them lose interest in maintaining the main series games.

...Last September Gamefreak started working on a new game, an RPG centered around defending a town from monsters, called TOWN (working title). Honestly, I think they're more interested in this new project than gen 8. If 85% of Pokemon's sales come from things not related to the main series games and they know dedicated fans will still buy a mediocre game on the Switch, then why bother making it a masterpiece when they can put their heart into something else they like more? I have to wonder how much Gamefreak, and The Pokemon Company as a whole (co-owned by Gamefreak, Nintendo, and some other entity), really care about this new game.

Thanks to coming to my TED talk.
There was an interview last month where a GF employee flat-out confirmed they are no longer prioritizing Pokémon. It flew under the radar because it was some no-name dude.

Here's the article. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/game-freak-prioritising-original-game-projects/
 
Since we've seen Duraludon use the Steel-type Light of Ruin (or was it Mind Blown?) to OHKO a Tyranitar, we can infer several things from it:
1) Duraludon cannot evolve (otherwise, it wouldn't have a signature move... assuming it is, of course)
2) It's a special attacker, so Heavy Metal is even more useless than initially thought
3) Hoping it gets either Rock Head or (unlikely) Magic Guard as a HA
 
Since we've seen Duraludon use the Steel-type Light of Ruin (or was it Mind Blown?) to OHKO a Tyranitar, we can infer several things from it:
1) Duraludon cannot evolve (otherwise, it wouldn't have a signature move... assuming it is, of course)
??? Even very recently we've seen Pokémon in an evolutionary line get signature moves. Alolan Exeggutor's Dragon Hammer; Golisopod's First Impression; Melmetal's Double Iron Bash... in fact, Gen 7 was full of them. I won't be surprised if Duraludon doesn't have an evolutionary family, but I wouldn't call this proof.
 
Here's some calcs to elaborate Stellar's claim:

0 SpA Dialga Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 288-342 (84.4 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO: In this calc, TTar and Duraludon are assumed to have perfect IVs. This would require a minimum 151(!!!) Special Attack for a chance to OHKO with no EVs.

0 SpA Dialga Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 264-312 (85.1 - 100.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO: This is the "worst-case scenario" with TTar having 0 HP or Special Defense IVs while Duraludon still has perfect IVs. In order for a shot to OHKO under these conditions, Duraludon would require a minimum of 116 SpA.
How do we know it’s in sand? Even with TTars ability the picture doesn’t look sandy (can’t check vid rn). Also with EVs + Metal Sound?
 
How do we know it’s in sand? Even with TTars ability the picture doesn’t look sandy (can’t check vid rn). Also with EVs + Metal Sound?
Without sand, it goes down to a more manageable 95
0 SpA Dialga Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 288-342 (84.4 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

185100


(remember this is absolutely uninvested and without items on either side. If that tyranitar had Sand stream or bulk investment, the spatk necessary without investment also goes significantly up)
 
??? Even very recently we've seen Pokémon in an evolutionary line get signature moves. Alolan Exeggutor's Dragon Hammer; Golisopod's First Impression; Melmetal's Double Iron Bash... in fact, Gen 7 was full of them. I won't be surprised if Duraludon doesn't have an evolutionary family, but I wouldn't call this proof.
... no, that's not what I meant. What I meant to say is that Duraludon itself cannot evolve. Whether it has pre-evolutions (like all the examples you mentioned) is another story we don't know.

How do we know it’s in sand? Even with TTars ability the picture doesn’t look sandy (can’t check vid rn). Also with EVs + Metal Sound?
There is a sandstorm during the video, yes.
 
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... no, that's not what I meant. What I meant to say is that Duraludon itself cannot evolve. Whether it has pre-evolutions (like all the examples you mentioned) is another story we don't know.
I don't understand how you came to this conclusion. There are dozens of Pokémon that share signature moves with their evolved forms. Shore Up, Strength Sap, Night Daze, Topsy-Turvy, Forest's Curse, Parting Shot, Gear Grind, Needle Arm and Bonemerang are just a few examples that are the signature moves of a whole line, not just the fully-evolved form.

Who says that this new Steel/Dragon is its family's Marowak and not Cubone?
 
I don't understand how you came to this conclusion. There are dozens of Pokémon that share signature moves with their evolved forms. Shore Up, Strength Sap, Night Daze, Topsy-Turvy, Forest's Curse, Parting Shot, Gear Grind, Needle Arm and Bonemerang are just a few examples that are the signature moves of a whole line, not just the fully-evolved form.

Who says that this new Steel/Dragon is Marowak and not Cubone?
Fair point. I forgot some signature moves were learnable by pre-evolutions.
 
I would find it pretty weird for Tyranitar's rival to be the baby form, to be honest...
Where exactly are they called rivals though?
They battle in the wild because they live in the same habitat. That's all the official website says, but that's canonically true for many different Pokémon species of all kinds and evolutionary stages.
 
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Codraroll

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Where exactly are they called rivals though?
They battle in the wild because they live in the same habitat. That's all the official website says, but that's canonically true for many different Pokémon species of all kinds and evolutionary stages.
Tyranitar is also described as the Pokémon that tears down mountains and redirects the flow of rivers whenever it's in the mood. A Pokémon that regularly goes toe-to-toe with it should be pretty strong by necessity.

I believe Duraludon will either be this generation's pseudo-legendary, or this generation's late-game single-stage dragon (Druddigon, Drampa). Can't really see it evolve into something, but it might evolve from something.
 
Tyranitar is also described as the Pokémon that tears down mountains and redirects the flow of rivers whenever it's in the mood. A Pokémon that regularly goes toe-to-toe with it should be pretty strong by necessity.

I believe Duraludon will either be this generation's pseudo-legendary, or this generation's late-game single-stage dragon (Druddigon, Drampa). Can't really see it evolve into something, but it might evolve from something.
Tyranitar is also described as having a body that cannot be harmed by any sort of attack, which literally never has been true or made sense. Pokédex descriptions are a non-argument.

All of this is obviously speculation and I'm not looking to argue something that nobody here can prove, but this new dragon doesn't feel like a fully-evolved monster to me for some reason. That being said, I might be biased since I really do not like its design and hope that it changes into something better upon evolution.
 
Tyranitar is also described as having a body that cannot be harmed by any sort of attack, which literally never has been true or made sense. Pokédex descriptions are a non-argument.

All of this is obviously speculation and I'm not looking to argue something that nobody here can prove, but this new dragon doesn't feel like a fully-evolved monster to me for some reason. That being said, I might be biased since I really do not like its design and hope that it changes into something better upon evolution.
Tyranitar's body in fact cannot be harmed by any sort of attack. You can check in-game that now matter how many times your T-tar dissapears by CC, his graphic is always the same, without a single indication of his body being injured.
 

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